Conduction-Electron Contribution to Electric Field Gradients in Rare-Earth Metals

Abstract

The conduction-electron contribution to the electric field gradients in the heavy rare-earth metals has been calculated using a modified orthagonalized-plane-wave approach. Experimental results can be easily explained within the confines of the model and the amount of $5d$ character mixed into the conduction-electron wave function (characterized by a parameter ${\epsilon }_d$) agrees well in both magnitude and sign with previous independent methods of determination. An attempt is made to correlate the magnitude of the $5d$ admixture with the $d$ density of states in the conduction band.